Project Quarm - 1 Box Planes of Power

[Venkmen]

Love this idea, and will definitely be playing this. I wish the server was going to LDoN. I loved the extra group content that LDoN added as that was always my favored game play type (yes I raided at the top end of EQ even, but my favorite times were in a group).

If the player based asked for it, would going up to LDoN be an option once was PoP launched? I'm playing this regardless, but ending at LDoN would be Nirvana for me.

Thanks for all the work getting this amazing environment for us EQ fanatics!

[unsunghero]

Originally Posted by Toxigen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And all this as a 57 enchanter? lol

Ya it’s hazy, but if I recall I went gfay->BB->Kaesora? (The dungeon in lavastorm)->SolA->FV (I always loved FV for some reason)->SolB->Emerald Jungle/zone with Karnor’s castle (just killed the dolvargs outside)->CoM->Burning woods/Chardok

[tristantio]

I'm excited!

[Bisonzabi]

Ports to Luclin and PoK along with an official hub were inevitable. The bigger a world becomes, the more spread out servers will become, Verant/SoE knew this even before SoL's release by even acknowledging the importance of the Freeport area was to the playerbase as a defacto hub hence why RoK/SoV had entry points in its backyards along with exits from endgame zones like Plane of Sky and Veeshans Peak.

And outside of ports; The biggest issue with SoL is that it was a half baked expansion with many zones feeling barren or pointless. Had they took time with SoL and maybe waited another year to iron out not just the zone designs, mobs, and even the revamp player models, I think that expansion would've been better remembered.

[Landroval]

Originally Posted by Bisonzabi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ports to Luclin and PoK along with an official hub were inevitable. The bigger a world becomes, the more spread out servers will become, Verant/SoE knew this even before SoL's release by even acknowledging the importance of the Freeport area was to the playerbase as a defacto hub hence why RoK/SoV had entry points in its backyards along with exits from endgame zones like Plane of Sky and Veeshans Peak.

And outside of ports; The biggest issue with SoL is that it was a half baked expansion with many zones feeling barren or pointless. Had they took time with SoL and maybe waited another year to iron out not just the zone designs, mobs, and even the revamp player models, I think that expansion would've been better remembered.

SoL was an attempt to develop an expansion that had exp-able content from lvl 1 to lvl 60. The reason you categorize the majority of the zones as "useless" is simply because you were leveled past them by the time it came out, and because the lower 2/3rds of exp zones contained within the expansion are tuned to a higher difficulty than their respective counterparts in classic, kunark, and velious; they were attempting to avoid the mistake of creating an expansion that only suited the 30+ crowd like they did with velious.

And more zones doesn't mean the player base is spread out more. Once the server opens POP, POP will essentially house 90% of the player base 90% of the time, with classic kunark and velious zones being something you speed run through to get to 46 to zone into POTranq.

After the level 65 expansion rollout; with POP, then the launch of ykesha LDON GoD OoW DoN and DoDH and PoR expansions this constitutes 8 expansions in a row without low level content, the dev team reexplored this concept of a comprehensive expansion again with the launch of TSS, which offered a comprehensive expansion suitable for leveling from 1 to 75 within.

Admittedly, TSS was far more effective than Luclin at accomplishing this aim; providing an exp-accellerated-zem expansion conducive to lvl 1 to lvl-cap gameplay with challenging content even against twink characters at low levels; the biggest reason Luclin didn't become the defacto 1-60 grinding expacs is because the ZEMs weren't boosted enough past Paludal Caverns in the leveling arc to compensate for the increase in difficulty, but the intention was to provide a comprehensive expansion for all levels; the player base's tendency toward following the path of least resistance in experience grinding wasn't foreseen.

[Bisonzabi]

Originally Posted by Landroval [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

SoL was an attempt to develop an expansion that had exp-able content from lvl 1 to lvl 60.

Kunark also catered to that level range but the zones were much more thought out.

The reason you categorize the majority of the zones as "useless" is simply because you were leveled past them by the time it came out,

No, I'm calling them useless on a game design perspective. Everything from overland zone designs, layout, mob placement and reasoning for why mobs being in specific zones and lack of factions tied to many. Lot of these zones could've easily been merged together like Marus Seru and Mons Letalis (someone got way too experimental with zone naming) much in the same way Dreadlands in Kunark had three different landscape biomes. And who said I was leveled past them?

and because the lower 2/3rds of exp zones contained within the expansion are tuned to a higher difficulty than their respective counterparts in classic, kunark, and velious; they were attempting to avoid the mistake of creating an expansion that only suited the 30+ crowd like they did with velious.

Velious itself was also catering to a higher difficulty even at the midlevels This is another problem with SoL: There was no levelcap when it was pretty obvious that there needed to be since the endgame was not made for Level 60 and the raid scene was fucked. Love him or hate him; Tigoles blogposts of SoL's raid scene in early 2002 are to EQ to what Cicero's writings are to the late Roman Republic when looking at it in hindsight.

And more zones doesn't mean the player base is spread out more.

Yes it does and this is a problem every MMO has to address as time goes on when introducing new content and how to streamline player movement, especially if there are multiple starting zones. PoK unironically saved many older zones in terms of their relevancy.

Once the server opens POP, POP will essentially house 90% of the player base 90% of the time, with classic kunark and velious zones being something you speed run through to get to 46 to zone into POTranq.

Meanwhile the remaining trying to level will try and be LFG at only optimal camping places and with SoL's only noteworthy xp camps being Paladul and Echo Caverns and maybe Griegs End. Btw this thinned out playerbase outside of endgame is one of the major problems EQ1 had in 03-04 and onward, especially when WoW (and to a minor extent EQ2) came out. Before and after November 2004 was like night and day. And are you sure it's not 90.5%?

And I need to stress I don't hate the concept of the expansion pack and I did like a lot of the zones that I felt were more well thought out (the subterranean zones for example), but it was clearly rushed out with a lot of issues tacked on which did indeed sully the reputation of the developers and the game itself. Amazing how they introduced new armor texture packs in Velious and then trashed the variety with the new models at the time.

[Homesteaded]

Yes please let’s keep Druid’s and wizards being taxi cabs. It’s so engaging to dial an Uber port. Druids and Wizards are a lot more useful in PoP and transforming them into useful classes is an improvement over niche raid nukers or port/PL bots.

[Jimjam]

TSS WAS THE REAL EQ 2!

It took a long while to give it a go, but yeah it was actually fun to play through with a friend.

[Castle2.0]

Paludal Caverns was super. Some other low to mid level zones were fresh, but hard to explore. I just remember Lightcrawlers being a menace.

The war in the zone near the cat city was a very cool concept with great loot.

But mob HP increase was a little too insane.

At least I played on FV when Luclin released. My twinks were super twinks =)

[unsunghero]

^
Oh ya and somewhere in there I did a shitload of bandits in one of the karanas and split paw gnolls outside splitpaw in a diff karana